More mobile phone masts will transmit in Hatzfeld and Haina

On the sidelines of the Gigabit Summit in Wiesbaden, Hesse's Digital Minister Prof. Dr. Kristina Sinemus handed over notifications amounting to over 660,000 euros for the construction of two mobile phone masts in Hatzfeld and Haina to the District Administrator of Waldeck-Frankenberg, Jürgen van der Horst. "Market-driven expansion continues to have top priority, but where mobile phone companies do not invest, our own funding programme comes into play. The review for the construction of mobile phone masts is already underway for almost 290 Hessian municipalities," emphasised Hesse's Digital Minister Prof. Dr. Kristina Sinemus. The first two notices from the state's own funding programme were handed over in the Schwalm-Eder district at the end of 2022.

"In Hesse's largest district in terms of area, the white spots have already become significantly fewer. With the funding from the state programme for mobile phone expansion, two more white spots in the Upper Eder Valley will now be closed and the residents there will receive high-quality mobile phone coverage. Together with the implementation of the coverage requirements and the federal funding for mobile phone expansion, mobile phone coverage will also continue to improve in many other places in the district. I would like to thank the Competence Centre for Mobile Communications of the state, with whom we have gone this way together and will continue to do so," said Jürgen van der Horst, District Administrator of Waldeck-Frankenberg.

In terms of coverage figures, the expansion of mobile telephony in Hesse is progressing. "Coverage has improved significantly, with 99.8% of households now able to use at least one LTE network and over 95% of households even receiving all three LTE networks simultaneously. This is due in particular to the joint and successful cooperation, which has been certified to us by all providers. In Hesse, moreover, a fibre-optic network has already been established practically throughout the state, reaching almost every district. Mobile phone expansion also benefits from this, as mobile phone masts can be connected via it," said Sinemus. "In addition, the Mobile Radio Expansion Acceleration Act is the second time in a legislative period that a law has been passed that further simplifies the expansion of mobile radio," Sinemus added.

Successful balance sheet of the Mobile Communications Pact of the Future
By the end of 2024, around 4,000 mobile communications sites are to be newly built or upgraded in Hesse. This is one of the agreements from the "Mobile Communications Pact of the Future for Hesse", which the state government signed with the three companies Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica Deutschland and Vodafone in January 2022. Digital Minister Sinemus announced that already 15 months after the agreement was signed, almost 2,400 measures, well over half, had been implemented, of which 339 mobile network sites were newly put into operation and 2,060 LTE as well as 5G expansions. "This means that since January 2022, one new mobile site has been built every working day and more than six have been modernised," Sinemus added.

In a nationwide comparison, Hesse is one of the most densely forested federal states with challenging topographical conditions. One hundred percent area coverage is not possible with mobile communications, otherwise a mast would have to be erected in every valley or hollow. The current figures of the broadband atlas show an almost 99% LTE mobile coverage for private households and a 92% LTE coverage in the area for the district of Waldeck-Frankenberg.

Keywords:

Broadband expansion in Waldeck-Frankenberg Specialist Service Information Technology and Digital Administration